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Feedback (10/19-10/25)

One of our editorial interns, Gabriel Goodwin, wrote a blog post entitled "All Lives Matter: A racist response to a race problem in America." It drew a lot of commentary online, but also prompted a reader named Julie Benac to email us these comments:

I wanted to thank you so much for the great piece written by Gabriel Goodwin on the "All Lives Matter" movement! Now, I'm not black. I'm about as lily-white as they come, but I had the privilege of working with inner-city homeless black women in Detroit for four years. I can tell you emphatically: Black lives matter! I've given up trying to explain to my parents or my white-privileged friends why saying "all lives matter" is a cop-out. They just don't "get it." Why is this?

I've come to using a little story to try to illustrate one small facet of "black lives matter." Every day, I drive the Southfield Freeway to work with a speed limit of 55 mph. Nobody really goes 55 mph, of course, and everyone speeds. Picture two female drivers, both speeding at, say, 70 mph. One of the females is black, with a "crappy" beater car, and the other woman is just like me: white, decent car, nicely dressed. Who is more likely to get pulled over? Who is the target?

So, when I get behind the occasional slow driver on Southfield Freeway, I don't get upset, especially if it's a person of color. I understand that this person is covering their ass. The white person will never know what it is like to have so many strikes against him, simply because of the color of his skin. He will never know, or understand. This is why black lives matter. And why, as Goodwin says, "saying all lives matter" is the equivalent of saying "ignore it until it goes away."

In response to a number of comments on a blog post entitled "Michael Moore's surprise NYC 'Trumpland' premieres tonight," a poster named ConservatismIsaMentalDisease commented on why he feels conservative posters are very worried:

Because they know the end is in sight for white Christian America. It is a fact that WCA is dying. It's their choice — it's suicide.

The nature of today's most heated issues — such as same-sex marriage and religious liberty, the rise of the Tea Party following the election of our first black president, and deadly disagreements between black and white Americans over the fairness of the criminal justice system — can only be understood against the tyranny of white Christians and their psychotic anxieties as America's racial and religious landscape shifts around them, And they realize they are losing all power and control.

It's a fact that in 2016 and beyond, the descendants of WCA will lack the political power they once had to set the terms of the nation's debate over values and morals and to determine election outcomes. Looking ahead, the ways of the bigot in the new America are no longer going to be tolerated — much less in charge.